Byzantine-Crusader Relations from the Establishment of the Byzantine Empire to the End of the Fourth Crusade

Abstract

The Byzantine Empire was born from the womb of the Roman Empire in Europe, separated from it, and formed their own empire, whose natures are different from the uncivilized peoples and inhabitants of Europe who are characterized by strength, cruelty and brutality. The trait of caution doubt and suspicion prevailed these relation and the attempt to grab What is in the hand of the other and to set him up whenever he has the opportunity, even if he is on their faith for which they came, and we find this thing present with the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I and other kings of Byzantium, after asking for sapport from the Western European (the Crusaders) his brothers in religion and belief against the Seljuks The Muslims regretted and guarded them and feared for his sovereign and his state, and over the years and ages, the relations between them became bad and gradually became tense, and the kings, crusader princes and men of the Catholic Church continued to pressure the Byzantine state in order to control and seize its property and wealth and to merge its church with the mother church in Rome until those relations collapsed . This intervention took different forms and images until, in the end, they prepared a new crusade Campaign from Europe known as the (Fourth Crusade Crusade), through which they were able to occupy Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, and the sword worked in its people by killing, plundering and looting the city and burning it with brutality, until its people wished that their city had fallen in the hands of the Muslims, when they heard of the Muslims’ tolerance when they conquered Bait Al-Maqdis and others.